For more than four months now, the world has been in shock as Israel massacred, mutilated, starved, tortured and humiliated Palestinians in Gaza.
For us, Palestinian refugees in the diaspora, witnessing this horror was particularly poignant. Every story, every plea, everything that unfolds resonates with the echoes of the stories we have heard for years from our parents, grandparents, neighbors and friends’ relatives about what they experienced during the Nakba of 1948, when they were ethnically cleansed from their homeland. . Thus, each testimony we hear amplifies the weight of the testimony beyond the immediate scenes of horror emanating daily from Gaza.
I grew up in the Baqa’a refugee camp in Jordan, where my mother and grandmother settled in 1970 after suffering multiple displacements from the Nakba. Their ordeal began with the expulsion of their native village, Iraq al-Manshiyya, 30 km north of Gaza, in April 1949. After a 10-month siege by the Jewish Haganah militia, the people were given the order to “temporarily relocate”. to an area near Hebron, now known as Arroub camp, and were never allowed to return.
Due to the events of the 1967 war, they were forced to move again, this time to the al-Karama camp in Jordan. In 1968, they were transferred to the Ash-Shuna camp, near the town of Zarqa in Jordan, before moving to Baqa’a two years later.
My generation was surrounded by people with vivid memories of life before 1948 and the harrowing events of the Nakba from 1947 to 1949. These stories have become a canvas on which I try to understand the profound impacts of the atrocities committed in Gaza against the Palestinians.
Conversations within the camp constantly returned to the past, with every aspect of daily life measured against the pre-Nakba era. The elderly spoke of their losses, their painful journeys of exile, the deep trauma they endured and the lingering sense of injustice in their hearts.
For us, the younger generation, it wasn’t just about hearing about historical events; it was a visceral experience to live alongside those who directly witnessed and endured the atrocities of this tumultuous time. The weight of their memories, their losses and their ongoing struggles have shaped our understanding of identity and fueled the quest for justice.
Some stories became enduring narratives within the camp, easily told and passed down from generation to generation, particularly those related to resistance. Yet some stories rarely surfaced or were deliberately hidden, particularly from outsiders and researchers who visited the camp intermittently seeking to document the accounts.
Among the hidden stories were those involving harrowing experiences of forced starvation, cases of sexual violence perpetrated by the Jewish Haganah militia against men and women, and the heartbreaking accounts of mothers who, amid the bombings, left their children behind them.
These latter stories, while later echoed by the happy reunion of parent and child, were told with a certain sense of pride in the force deployed. For those who never knew the fate of their children and other loved ones, these stories were so painful that they were not talked about in an attempt to hide the deep sense of loss and guilt.
Yet it was the stories about hunger that carried the deepest emotional weight. When told, these stories were often punctuated with the poignant phrase: “I pray to God that these days will never be relived or experienced by anyone, friend or foe.”
Adding to the anguish of these stories was the underlying feeling of shame. In a community once expert in the art of food production, the memory of famine represented a dissonance – a radical departure from the strength and ingenuity that defined their heritage.
The memory of forced starvation reflected not only physical deprivation, but also a profound departure from the self-sufficiency that had characterized their history. Planting wherever they went marked an important action for the Palestinians, not only to prevent a repeat of such suffering, but also to restore a sense of dignity and self-sufficiency to a people who once thrived on their ability not only to produce their own food. subsistence but to process food. -do it like an art.
As I read reports from Gaza of people struggling with forced starvation – unable to obtain flour to make bread, struggling to prepare a decent meal to feed their families, and losing children to the hunger – the look and anguished expressions of my grandmother while recounting the desperate days. of starvation constantly come to mind.
The Haganah militia besieged his village from approximately June 1948 to April 1949. During this period, those who challenged the blockade and attempted to bring supplies to the village were either killed or forcibly disappeared; one of them was my grandfather, who disappeared and was never heard from again.
Not only were no supplies reaching the village, but Haganah fighters deliberately destroyed food warehouses, massacred cows and sheep, and burned wheat fields and orchards of grapes, apples, and apricots. My memories of my grandmother’s face as she recounted these struggles become a window into the emotions that accompany the struggle for existence – the feelings of despair and helplessness, and the crushing weight of responsibility to provide for needs of those close to him.
Through these memories, I glimpse the harsh reality faced by Palestinians under siege in Gaza, where simply obtaining basic foodstuffs has become a formidable challenge.
But when I reflect on my grandmother’s experiences, I cannot reduce them to her despair; that wouldn’t do them justice. During the siege of her village, my grandmother played a central role in resisting the starvation tactics of the Haganah militia.
She led the fight against starvation by inventing new meals from whatever was available, a fact she proudly shared in her stories. Through her experience of famine and her determined efforts to combat it, my grandmother’s story encapsulates not only the suffering of the Palestinians in 1948 and the brutality that forced them from their homes, but also the indomitable will to challenge and overcome these adversities.
Just like my grandmother, Palestinians in Gaza suffer and endure brutality, but they also demonstrate their special ability to resist Israeli tactics of starvation, displacement and degradation.
As we read through the tragic stories from Gaza, the life of a Palestinian reveals itself as a paradox – a delicate balance between enduring suffering and embodying unwavering resistance. This dual experience resonates with the beautiful lines of the poem And We Love Life by Mahmoud Darwish: “And we love life if we find a way to achieve it. We dance among the martyrs and raise a minaret for the violets or the palm trees.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.
